Simson Garfinkel, has published his review on Google's Gmail webmail system. He considers it as a sound advertisement for the thin-client concept, once that Sun has been trying to revitalise for a while now.
Gmail is different. For starters, it’s blindingly fast-so fast that it feels like it is running on your local computer and not in some data center. Click on a message’s subject and it instantly appears. When you are done reading a message you click “Archive”-the message is instantly stored, and you’re looking back at your inbox. (As with other Web-based mail systems, you can report spam simply by clicking “report spam.”)
Gmail’s anti-spam system is nothing short of phenomenal. I sent Gmail a copy of my entire inbox for two weeks-that’s 200 real messages a day plus 500 pieces of spam. My anti-spam system at home let through about 20 spams a day; Gmail let through fewer than 5. Gmail’s big advantage in the anti-spam department is its ability to harness the collective vigilance of all Gmail users. Once a message has been reported as spam by a few dozen users, Gmail’s servers can pull that message out of everybody else’s inbox.
Technology Review has this piece.
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